Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design
It’s been a big couple of weeks for second-generation satellite-based augmentation system (SBAS) technology and for Bethesda, Maryland-based global security and aerospace company Lockheed Martin.
By Inside GNSS
Passive hydrogen maser atomic clock of the type flown on Galileo, accurate to one second in three million years. ESA photo.Speakers at last month’s 9th Annual Conference on European Space Policy in Brussels wasted no time in addressing the somewhat worrying failure of a number of Galileo onboard clocks, as revealed by European Space Agency Director General Johan-Dietrich Woerner at a press briefing earlier in January in Paris. He made clear at the time that the clock failures, while indeed troubling, had had no effect on the operational integrity of the Galileo system.
By Inside GNSS
Spirent Communications plc’s annual security forecast warns of the increased likelihood of disruptions this year to a wide variety of civil and military applications relying on global navigation satellite systems — GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, and BeiDou.
By Inside GNSS
One of 12 magnetograms recorded at Greenwich Observatory during the Great Geomagnetic Storm of 1859
1996 soccer game in the Midwest, (Rick Dikeman image)
Nouméa ground station after the flood
A pencil and a coffee cup show the size of NASA’s teeny tiny PhoneSat
Bonus Hotspot: Naro Tartaruga AUV
Pacific lamprey spawning (photo by Jeremy Monroe, Fresh Waters Illustrated)
“Return of the Bucentaurn to the Molo on Ascension Day”, by (Giovanni Antonio Canal) Canaletto
The U.S. Naval Observatory Alternate Master Clock at 2nd Space Operations Squadron, Schriever AFB in Colorado. This photo was taken in January, 2006 during the addition of a leap second. The USNO master clocks control GPS timing. They are accurate to within one second every 20 million years (Satellites are so picky! Humans, on the other hand, just want to know if we’re too late for lunch) USAF photo by A1C Jason Ridder. 
Detail of Compass/ BeiDou2 system diagram
Hotspot 6: Beluga A300 600ST
Tracking illegal logging in Romania, autonomous mining, ancient calendars and Canadian cows
By Inside GNSS
SBAS illustration with the GNSS satellites (upper left) and the communications satellite (upper right).With the Australian government’s announcement earlier this month that it would invest $12 million in a two-year program looking into the future of positioning technology in Australia, comes plans for testing of satellite based augmentation systems (SBAS) to be undertaken, and for future applications for all four major modes of transport in Australia, as well as for potential safety, productivity, efficiency and environmental benefits.
By Inside GNSS_and_Fergus_Noble_(R),_co-founde-e240cc279eaa83b2be814504fc94555b.jpg)
Swift Navigation co-founders Colin Beighley (left) ands Fergus Noble (right). Swift Navigation co-founders Fergus Noble (29) and Colin Beighley (28) have been honored in the 2017 Forbes 30 Under 30 Consumer Technology list.
Swift Navigation is a San Francisco-based startup that provides centimeter-accurate real-time kinematics (RTK) GPS and GNSS positioning technology for autonomous vehicles, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), precision agriculture, robotics, surveying, space applications and more.
By Inside GNSS
Halsey named Hemisphere GNSS President and CEO.Hemisphere GNSS has named industry veteran Farlin Halsey as its president and chief executive officer, effective January 2, 2017. Halsey replaces interim president and CEO Xinping Guo, who has served in that position for eight months.
In addition, Halsey has been appointed to the company’s board of directors. Guo, chairman and general manager of Beijing UniStrong Science & Technology, which owns 100 percent of Hemisphere GNSS, will continue to serve on the company’s board of directors.
By Inside GNSS
The European Commission (EC) has opened the third round of competition for €33 million (US$35.15 million) in Horizon 2020 (H2020) contracts for development of European GNSS (EGNSS) applications exploiting use of Galileo and the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS).
By Inside GNSS
Rob Hranak, Swift Navigation vice president of business development, talks about Piksi Multi at InterGEOThis year’s InterGEO in Hamburg, Germany, featured the latest in geospatial wizardry including new navigation and positioning components and boards not only driving progress in the surveying and mapping industries, but also feeding into the wider GNSS user community.
San Francisco-based Swift Navigation came into InterGEO brandishing the all-new Piksi Multi, described as the world’s first affordable multi-band and multi-constellation receiver.
By Inside GNSS
Swift Navigation’s Piksi Multi with evaluation boardUpdated: San Francisco, California–based Swift Navigation has announced its newest product, the Piksi Multi, a multi-band, multi-constellation, real-time kinematic–capable OEM GNSS receiver module with a unit price of $600.
By Inside GNSS
Because GPS and other GNSS are critical to the nation’s infrastructure, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is testing an augmentation system and developing new requirements to protect it, a DHS official told the U.S. Department of Transportations’s Civil GPS Service Interface Committee (CGSIC) meeting this week in Portland, Oregon.
A new rule that took effect yesterday (August 29, 2016) eases U.S. limits on the commercial drone flights, unleashing a surging industry that depends in large measure on GPS for success.
The rule’s provisions allow operators of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) to proceed without having to obtain waivers or flight-by-flight permissions from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) — a process that had caused long delays and lost business.
By Dee Ann Divis
Eclipse P326Hemisphere GNSS has introduced two new OEM boards, the Eclipse P326 and P327, designed for machine control, land or marine survey, and agriculture applications. The boards support GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou, Galileo, and Japan’s QZSS (Quasi-Zenith Satellite System).
The boards are the first within the Eclipse product line to have refreshed low-power capability, reduced size, cost, and weight, the company said. P326 and P327 offer centimeter-level accuracy in either single- or multi-frequencies, using signals from multiple GNSS constellations. and Atlas-capable modes.
By Inside GNSS
